The Willow. 



leave of, without expressing my hope that I shall live to see 

 many persons making plantations of it in England. 



THS WILLOW. 



In Latin Salix ; in French Saule. 



568. The botauical characters are : — It has male and female flowers on 

 separate plants ; the male flowers are disposed in one common oblong im- 

 bricated katkin. The scales have each one oblong- spreading flower, which 

 has no petal, but a cylindrical nectarious gland in the centre. It has two 

 slender erect stamina, terminated by twin summits having four cells. The 

 female flowers are disposed in katkins like the male ; these have neither 

 petals nor stamina, but an oval narrowed gerraen, scarcely distinguishable 

 from the style, crowned by two bifid erect stigmas. The germen afterwards 

 becomes an awl-shaped capsule, with one cell opening with two valves, con- 

 taining many small oval seeds crowned with hairy down. 



569. This tree is so common in England, and there are 

 so many sorts of Willow, that to enter into a minute de- 

 scription of each would be quite useless to any reader, and 

 would take up more room and more time than any one but 

 a mere Botanist would deem the subject worthy of. Miller 

 has fourteen species of Willow, and chal-x has two : 

 but as the mode of propagating, rearing, cultivating, and 

 generally the mode of cutting down all the sorts is the same, 

 one set of directions will, with few exceptions, seiTe for 

 the whole, 



570. Willows may, if we please, of almost all the sorts, 

 become considerable trees ; trees of a large tmnk and 

 great height. The wood of some of the Willows is not 

 bad, even as timber; but the general purposes to which the 

 Willow is ajiplied, cause it to be regarded only as un- 



